“A” Game

In the same NY Times article refenced below, there’s this:

“Knowing Rove, he’s still having eight different policy meetings and sticking to his game plan,” said one veteran Republican strategist in Washington who often works with the White House. “But this issue now is looming, and as they peel away another layer of the onion, there’s a lot of consternation. Rove needs to be on his A game now, not huddled with lawyers and press people.”

A senior Congressional Republican aide said most members of Congress were still waiting to learn more about Mr. Rove’s involvement and to assess whether more disclosures about his role were likely.

“The only fear here is where does this go,” the aide said. “We can’t know.”

Getting Rove off his A game is almost worth as much as getting him out. He’s man known for his surly temperament in the best of times and this has been a bad second term so far for the GOP maestro. Social Security, his “legacy” project, is dead in the water. Iraq is a quagmire. Schiavo was a huge mistake and the SCOTUS battles ahead need his personal attention — the religious right is his very special constituency. Bush’s ratings are in the toilet. This, he did not need.

So, we will see whether The Magician is capable of handling the spotlight and all the pressure — at a time when you can be sure that his little Prince is very, very unhappy with his performance. Junior may remain loyal, but never think that it has to do with real personal loyalty. It has to do with never being willing to admit to a mistake. Bush will make Karl’s life a living hell. Do you think he really likes the guy who’s called “Bush’s Brain?” Does Karl strike anyone as a “W” kinda guy?

No, Karl is now under the worst kind of pressure imaginable. We’re not going to see his “A” game.

And as for “where does this go?” I think it’s time to start asking why George W. Bush, from the very beginning of this saga, has been saying things like “he’ll be taken care of” instead of “he’ll be fired.” His careful statements strong imply that he’s known from the start that someone important to him was the leaker.Otherwise, he would do his cowboy routine and issue a steely eyed threat (making Peggy Noonan moan in ecstacy.) If so, the question would be, did Rove confess after the fact or was Bush in on it from the beginning? WDTPKAWDHKI.

Michael Isikoff’s hinting yesterday about a classified file being the source of the leak is certainly tantalizing in that regard.

ISIKOFF: But the problem that people in the White House, Rove among them, may have is how did they know that Valerie Plame, or Wilson’s wife worked at the CIA? What we do know is there was a classified State Department report that said this, that was taken by Secretary of State Powell with him on the trip to Africa that President Bush was then on, and many senior White House aides were on.

That classified State Department report appears to have been — or may well have been the source for the information that Rove and others were then dishing out to reporters. And if that’s the case, there still may be — we don’t know yet, but there still may be an instance where classified information was provided to reporters.

The Grand Jury subpoenaed the phone records of Air Force One during that period. Who knows what they found? But if they found something, it’s come quite close to Colin Powell — and Bush himself. Air Force One isn’t that big.

Here’s the Newsweak story from last year about Powell’s grand jury appearance:

Powell’s appearance on July 16 is the latest sign the probe being conducted by prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald is highly active and broader than has been publicly known. Sources close to the case say prosecutors were interested in discussions Powell had while with President George W. Bush on a trip to Africa in July 2003, just before Plame’s identity was leaked to columnist Robert Novak. A senior State Department official confirmed that, while on the trip, Powell had a department intelligence report on whether Iraq had sought uranium from Niger—a claim Plame’s husband, Joseph Wilson, discounted after a trip to Niger on behalf of the CIA. The report stated that Wilson’s wife had attended a meeting at the CIA where the decision was made to send Wilson to Niger, but it did not mention her last name or undercover status. At the time, White House officials were seeking to discredit Wilson, who had become a public critic of the Bush administration. There’s no indication Powell is a subject of the probe; the department official said the secretary never talked to Novak about the Plame matter.

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